Shorted
by apocope
Summary: Some short stories set before, during and after Shocked! (in which all the characters are somewhat smarter and continuity exists)
1. Chapter 1

**1\. Penpals (Grade Four)**

Dear, Richard,

Hi, penpal! My name is Virgil Hawkins and I am in Mr Brooke's Fourth Grade Class. I like comic books, pizza and basketball. Do you have any favorite hobies, or favorite foods? I am excited for the Gifted Program, it will be fun.

I don't know what to say so here's a joke.

Two muffins are in the oven. One muffin says to the other muffin "Man it is getting hot in here" and the other muffin says, "Oh My God! A Talking Muffin!"

HAHAHAHAHAHA

your penpal,

Virgil

PS. You can call me V.

####

Dear V,

HAHA, that is the best joke ever.

I like comic books too! The Flash is my favorite, but I like Batman too. I wish I could run like that. Basketball is okay. I like running better. What do you think well do in the gifted program? I hope we get to learn about space and aliens.

I am in Ms Andersen's class. Right now we are learning about the pioneers. What are you learning about?

Here is my joke.

What is brown and sticky?

(a stick)

sinserely, Richie

PS. Sorry my joke is terrible.

PS2. You can call me Richie.

PS3. What kind of a name is Virgil?

####

Dear Richie,

I asked my Mom. She said Virgil is a Roman name. I think that's pretty cool. The romans have 25 pages in the ensiclopidia (how do you spell it?) and they built all kinds of stuff a really long time ago. Maybe we will learn about them in the program?

Green Lantern is my favorite hero. I have all his comics. Maybe we can trade comics? I don't have any Flash ones because Pops (that's my dad) only buys Green Lantern for me.

We are studying pioneers too. I thought they were boring but then we got to play Oregon Trail on the computer and my sister died from dissintary. (not really, only in the game)

Knock knock.

(you say, whos there)

Eiffel.

(you say, Eiffel who? Eiffel tower?)

No! Eiffel down! Call the ambulance.

Your penpal,

V.

####

It was the first day of the Gifted Program and the teacher told us to find our penpals by asking each other questions but not saying our names. It was a fun game and I was excited to meet Richie. We liked a lot of the same stuff and he even thought my Eiffel Tower joke was funny. In regular class nobody thought my jokes were funny.

Since we were supposed to ask questions, I decided to use our jokes, 'cause Richie would already know the punchlines.

"Knock knock," I said to a skinny blond white kid, probably the fifth or six person I'd talked to. He had glasses and a bandaid on one cheek, covering up a bruise.

"Who's there?" he asked, frowning behind his glasses.

"Owls."

"Owls who?" said the skinny kid, and then together we both said, "That's correct!"

Richie snorted and I grabbed his hand, raised it into the air. "Yo, teach! I found my pal!"

Richie pulled his hand out of my grip and stuck it in his jacket pocket, looking embarrassed. The teacher told us to pick a table and wait for the rest of the group to find their penpals and me and Richie sat down at table number four.

It turned out Richie was a lot shyer in real life than he was in letters, but fortunately I was prepared with two Green Lantern comics in my backpack. It was Mom's idea. I got out the comics and gave one to Richie, explaining why GL was so cool as he looked at the cover.

"You can borrow it," I whispered as the teacher called the class to order.

"Really?" Richie said, sounding surprised.

"For sure! You can give it back next class and I'll lend you the next one. You can't read this one and not the next one, 'cause it ends with GL trapped in this room full of lasers and-"

"Ten seconds!" the teacher shouted, meaning we had ten seconds left before we had to be totally quiet.

"Thanks," Richie whispered as the teacher started explaining our project for the day.


	2. Chapter 2

**At the Watkins' House (Junior Year)**

Me and Daisy were hanging out at her house, playing a game. I sat on her squeaky leather couch, wearing a blindfold, while she collected some pieces of random junk and put them on the coffee table one by one.

"What's this?" Daisy asked.

"A can," I said, pointing at the thing. This was an easy one.

"What _kind_ of can?" Daisy said, clearly proud of her own cleverness.

I frowned behind the blindfold, trying to focus on the can's contents, but I just couldn't pierce the metal.

"Soup?" I guessed.

"Nope. Corn. How about this?"

I smiled. This was a trick question. "Nothing."

Daisy laughed. "Nothing! Is this nothing?" Something soft hit me in the face and I grabbed it, peaked under the blindfold. A crumpled up kleenex.

"And this?" Instead of putting something on the table, Daisy leaned over, kissed me. Quickly, before I got too distracted, I reached into my pocket and got out a zap cap, drained my batteries. Daisy was used to accidental shocks by now, but I always felt bad when it happened.

Pretty soon we were both on the couch, her laying on top of me, playing with my hair, kissing my neck. I almost didn't notice her dad's car drive up.

The door opened and Daisy's parents walked in to see us playing the guessing game again, me sitting on the couch, Daisy on the floor, swapping out the can of corn for a shoe.

"Hey, Mr Watkins," I said, waving.

"Virgil," Mr Watkins said, nodding. I lifted up my blindfold to see him giving me and Daisy a stern, serious look. "Daisy, have you finished your homework?"

"Yes," Daisy groaned, rolling her eyes.

"Even the Chinese?" her dad asked, and Daisy shot back something in the foreign language. She'd tried to teach me some, but I never seemed to progress beyond _ni-hao_. Richie on the other hand could hold full conversations with her, which totally wasn't fair.

Mr Watkins nodded. "Carry on." He hung his keys on a hook by the door and left us to our game.

After a little while Daisy ran out of ideas for random things and we both sat on the floor, leaning against the couch, her playing with my hair again.

"What's it like?" Daisy asked.

I tugged on a dread. "Not that different. I have to put oil in them sometimes, but it's not like I don't have to wash it."

Daisy snorted. "I mean the electro-sense."

I'd figured as much, I just liked to tease her. I closed my eyes again, the better to think about it. "I think it's kinda like what bats do. You know, echolocation. Only it's not like hearing. I guess when I talk about it I say "feel," so maybe it's like touch? Only with touch, you can only feel stuff on your skin, but this is stuff outside me." I shrugged. It was really hard to explain, actually. Kind of like explaining a rainbow to a blind guy. I was so used to it now, it was hard to remember what the world felt like before getting exposed. I could turn it off, just like I could close my eyes or plug my ears, but it made me feel... limited. It also made me feel kind of sorry for everybody else, who didn't have this extra sense.

It was dumb to feel that way, I knew, since everybody else got along just fine. But worse than that, it was dangerous even, because pity for someone else was half a step away from thinking yourself superior. And then I wouldn't be any better than Ebon.

"You know," Daisy said, pulling out the braid she'd just done. "It kinda reminds me of this girl at Vanmoor who had perfect pitch. You'd play any note and she'd just _know_ if it was a C or an F-sharp or whatever."

"That's a real thing?" I asked, resisting the urge to kiss her right then and there. Daisy always knew just what to say, how to not make a big deal out of stuff, how to make me feel normal.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

Ah, teenagers. Doing the things teenagers do. (making out)

Fun fact: sharks and various species of fish (also bees and cockroaches!) really do have what Virgil calls his "electro-sense" (really the term is electroreception). Also, check out MRI scans of fruit for an idea for what stuff might "look" like with electroreception. It's neat!


	3. Chapter 3

**Coincidence (Junior Year)**

A thought occurred to me as I sat in homeroom, doing my US History homework. Richie sat next to me, drawing. I leaned over and poked him with my eraser.

"Hey," I whispered. "What's Edwin Alva's middle name?"

"Timothy," he whispered back, not looking up from his doodling.

"Edwin Timothy Alva?" I whispered and pushed my textbook into his line of sight, the page showing a glossy picture of Thomas Alva Edison.

He snorted in amusement and I pulled my book back.

* * *

 **Glasses (Sophmore Year, shortly after Ebon's first attack)**

Richie eyed his reflection in the mirror as he brushed his teeth before leaving for school, thinking about light. Why was it the stuff far away in the mirror—the shower and the wall behind him—was blurry without his glasses, when he was only inches away from the mirror itself? Shouldn't it have been in focus? He was really looking at the _mirror_ , which was close, not the shower, which was far.

He took his glasses off and put them back on again a couple times just to double check, then consulted the Administrator-the part of his brain he had designated the task of organizing how his brain worked.

 _Yo, Admin. I can mess with my senses, right?_

 _Yee-up. That's right, pardner._

 _Can I fix my eyes?_

 _No. You have myopia, caused by an elongation of-_

Richie silenced the mental construct, not wanting to rehash with himself how eyeballs worked. _Can I compensate?_

 _Yup, but it would be accelerated guesswork and speculation, not a real fix._

Just for the sake of trying it, Richie created the track, took off his glasses. He laughed at his reflection. Wow, he looked weird. Maybe this was a bad idea purely because he looked so funny without the glasses.

On the other hand, it was pretty cool that the stuff behind him in the mirror wasn't blurry. He could see all the sharp lines between the tiles, all the pieces of fuzz on the towel hanging on the shower door... He put the glasses back on to compare.

"Oh," he said around the toothbrush dangling from the corner of his mouth.

There were lots of little details he saw with the glasses on—flecks of mold on the wall, water stains on the shower door, stuff like that—which his power hadn't compensated for. He took the glasses off again, and his power preserved everything he remembered, but it really was just his brain making stuff up about what he'd _probably_ be seeing if he _did_ have twenty-twenty vision. And with all the extra detail, the Visual Compensation Track was starting to give him a headache.

Richie deleted the track, put his glasses back on, spat out the toothpaste and crossed off "get pilot's license" from his long-term to-do list. Oh well.


	4. Chapter 4

**Mr Coffee (Sophomore Year, shortly after Ebon's first attack)**

I felt my way down the stairs, yawning and rubbing sleep gunk out of my eyes. It was Sunday, which meant I got to sleep in, but I was also gonna have to come up with an alibi for when me and Richie went on patrol later. Maybe call up Daisy, spend the rest of the morning with her, but tell Pops it was the whole day? Yeah, that'd probably cover my afternoon.

Downstairs I found Sharon leaning on the kitchen counter, her head buried in her arms.

"Uh, Shar?" I hoped to God she wasn't crying, that she was just sleepy and waiting for coffee.

Sharon groaned. "Why does everything have to break all the time?" She sounded angry, real close to tears.

"What do you mean?" I asked, aware this was a risky move. She might get mad at me, or worse, cry.

"The coffee maker, the clock, the TV, everything!"

I winced. Those things were my fault, but it wasn't like I could help it. Fortunately Sharon didn't see my guilty face as she wiped her nose on her sleeve.

"I can chip in," I said. "I got some money saved up." 'Some' was an understatement.

Sharon shook her head. "It's not that, it's just..." She hiccuped, took a calming breath. "It was Mom's."

"Oh."

I looked at the old coffee machine, probably older than me and Sharon combined. It was more yellow and brown now than white and gray and most of the letters on the logo and the settings had rubbed off, but you could still make out the flower inside the O of Coffee.

"I bet Richie could fix it," I said without thinking.

Sharon just sighed, not questioning Richie's improbable fix-it skills. "Aunt Linnie gave us a new one for Christmas year before last. It's in the garage."

"Oh, yeah." I remembered it now, and the very weird reaction it had got out of Pops. I guess I'd never put two and two together until now.

"I still think about her a lot," Sharon said, not meaning Aunt Linnie.

"Yeah, me too." The two of us stared at the busted coffee maker for a little while.

"You want some instant?" I said. Pops always had some on hand just in case he didn't have time to brew a real pot.

Sharon blinked, seemed to pull herself back from the past. "Sure."

I got out two packets, dumped them into two mismatched mugs, added water and stuck them in the microwave, which miraculously still worked.

"It's just..." Sharon started to say, then trailed off, staring into space.

"Just what?"

"Just, when I was little, she always worked real early in the morning. I'd go down and sit on her lap. It'd be dark and quiet outside, and I thought that was so cool. Like everybody else in the whole world was supposed to be in bed, but _we_ were special and allowed to be up. Even if all I got to do was sit there and watch the coffee drip and listen to the radio."

I laughed. "What about the guy on the radio, was he special too?"

Sharon smiled, almost laughing as well. "I was like five. I don't think I understood the radio guy was a real person."

The cups went around a couple more times in the microwave, then the machine binged and I took them out.

"Since when do you drink coffee, anyway?" Sharon asked as I added a bunch of sugar and creamer to mine.

"Since, like, last week."

"Well, whatever. Don't let Pops know. He thinks it'll stunt your growth." We sat and drank coffee for a minute, then Sharon glanced at the clock. "Shoot. I gotta go. I'm meeting Jenny for test prep." She took a gulp of coffee, made a face and went back upstairs.

I sat at the kitchen table, nursing my coffee and staring at the gross old machine on the counter. I'd never say it to her face, but I was glad Sharon had told me that. About her and Mom and getting up early. It made it so the coffee maker, or even just coffee in general, was a special thing for her. Kinda like how a couple will have a song that is "theirs." And then later if they break up, maybe that song would remind them of all the good stuff. Or maybe not. I'd never had a song with anybody so I was only guessing.

My Mr Coffee thing was my hair. It was kinda stupid really, which was why I didn't want to tell Sharon or anyone. A few days before the riots, I'd asked Pops if I could get dreads. He'd said no, so I asked Mom and she told me, 'Virgil, it's your hair, you can do what you want with it.'

Looking back now, I think she was just tired and didn't want me bugging her, but at the time it had felt like, wow, I'm so grown up, I can pick my own clothes _and_ my own hair. I didn't actually get it done until last year, when Pops finally deemed me responsible enough to not let them get gross.

"Later, V!" Sharon shouted, the front door slamming behind her. Once I had heard the car pull away I went back to my room and grabbed my shockvox, called Richie.

"Hey, bro. You busy?"

"Nah. What's up?"

"Can you do me a favor and fix something?"


End file.
